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NLRB: Facebook Conversation That Includes Plans to Be Insubordinate? Lawful Grounds For Refusal to Rehire Employee


Richmond District Neighborhood Center and Ian Callaghan - NLRB


Facts:  Ian Callaghan and Kenya Moore both worked at the Beacon Teen Center at San Francisco's George Washington High School for the 2011 - 2012 school year.  Before the start of each school year, offer letters are sent to those employees who the school wants to return.  Both Callaghan and Moore got rehire letters for the 2012 - 2013 school year.  Before doing so, they exchanged Facebook messages that included the following:

  • "I don't want to ask permission."
  • "Let's do some cool shit, and let them figure out the money."
  • "Teach the kids how to grafitti up the walls."
  • "We'll take advantage, play music loud."
  • "Have parties all year and not get the office people involved.  just do it and pretend they are not there."
  • "I'm outta town.  But I'll be back to raise hell wit ya."

A Beacon employee sent screenshots of the conversation to management and on August 13, 2012, relying solely on the Facebook posts, the rehire offers were rescinded to Callaghan and Moore.  In essence, the decision to rescind the offers was based on the fact that the conversation demonstrated that Callaghan and Moore would not follow directions of management and questions existed about the intentions of Callaghan and Moore were they to return.  Suit was filed based upon alleged violations of the National Labor Relations Act ("NLRA") by the school.  An Administrative Law Judge upheld the terminations. 

Holding:  A three member panel of the NLRB upheld the Administrative Law Judge's ruling and held that no violation of the NLRA had occurred.  In this instance, Callaghan and Moore had demonstrated a wide variety of planned insubordination.  The panel noted that the Facebook exchange could not be considered a joke as the comments exchanged were not brief and were quite specific in detail.  As the panel noted, an employer is not required to wait for employees to follow through on misconduct that they advocated.  Consequently, the decision to rescind the rehire offers based upon the Facebook conversation between Callaghan and Moore was valid.

Date:  October 28, 2014

Opinion:  http://www.scribd.com/doc/244995724/Richmond-District-Neighborhood-Center-and-Ian-Callaghan

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